Pandemic Heartbreak for the Performing Musician

It’s August 2021, eighteen months deep into the global Covid-19 pandemic. I want to write this note to let all of you performance artists know that you are not alone.

When performances were taken away from us in early 2020, I felt like I was breaking up with a dream. “Just for a few months,” I thought.

I built a small garden to plant my dreams elsewhere. I took up other hobbies, and walked walked walked. I read books and cooked meals. I started teaching others the art of music and watched as their souls were nurtured alongside mine.

As the years of disappointment and heartbreak of being an artist started to wash away and I wondered if I would ever go back to performing again. I could see myself being happy at home, alone with my books, strumming my guitar and having time to myself.

Now that the world is reopening for business, my head and heart is spinning.

Can I really go back to the heartbreak of being a performing musician?

Can I stand in front of a microphone again, singing to a crowd of masked faces?

Can I handle the broken down vans, the flat tires, the broken ACs, the empty bars, the old hotel rooms? The set lists, the sound checks, the equipment?

I can’t see it happening any other way.

Because playing music isn’t just something that we do… it’s who we are.

And no virus can kill that.